clearing out /tmp safely

[Steven Stern]

On Wed, 21 Jan 2004 10:44:14 +1000, "Matt H." <helios82 at optushome.com.au>
wrote:

>Hi guys
>
>I would like to clean out my /tmp partition as per the tip at 
>http://fedoranews.org/krishnan/tips/tip014.shtml. However, just one small
>query. Is there any folders/files in the /tmp directory that shouldn't be
>deleted? My /tmp currently contains directories such as gconfd-root,
>kde-root, ksocket-root, lost+found, mcop-root, a number of ssh-*, and
>files such as crxmlqWMLkc, a number of libGL.la-*, sockets such as
>mapping-root,..etc.
>
>Will all these entries safely be recreated when needed? Just a
>precautionary measure; I realise it is after all a "temporary" directory! 
>
>TY
>-- 
>Matt

Check /etc/cron.daily

You should see that tmpwatch is run every day.  

  man tmpwatch 

says 

      tmpwatch  recursively  removes  files which haven't been accessed for a
       given number of hours. Normally, it's  used  to  clean  up  directories
       which are used for temporary holding space such as /tmp.

You can edit /etc/cron.daily/tmpwatch to change the parameters used.

--
   Steve